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Split Thread Should creationism be taught as Science?

Sideroxylon said:
Flood explanations of the geological column are pretty funny.
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The video below: Hour long, starts ~3 minutes in: An excellent lecture on Noah's Flood and a number of other historical floods, what's behind a lot of the flood stories and how they fit in several different categories.

Harvard University

The geologist David Montgomery explores the interface of science and religion through flood stories from cultures around the world.
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It was really good. He talks about a number of large floods like here in WA State where we had the Missoula floods that left the scablands in Eastern Wa. The Biblical flood is of course one of many flood stories.

Here's the Youtube link if you want to watch it off the forum: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMaUzNlDnSY
 
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Meadmaker said:
That's certainly how Jews use the word. Ha Olam.

I've seen Olam translated as "the universe" and as "everything" and as "the world", but "world" doesn't mean a big rock floating in space. It means everyplace you could possibly go. In the English translation of Jewish blessings today, "Melekh Ha Olam" is often translated "King of the Universe". I don't know that Latin term, but in the English Mass for the RCC, it's is translated "Ruler of All Creation". It's the same phrase.
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I would love to check out some nuanced explorations of this. It is very easy to falsely take for granted that the concepts we have today existed in the same form as held by the authors. Even ideas like something and nothing that may seem so obvious to us had to be constructed and evolve.
 
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Sideroxylon said:
Is it?
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I think it is reasonable to assume that a primitive creation myth as found in Genesis, would include the entire universe as it was thought to be at the time. The fact that they got it wrong is beside the point.
 
Meadmaker said:
I'm not aware of Christians mass protesting anything except abortion, so I still don't see it happening.


However, the official curriculum right now implies that Genesis is false, and does so in a way that is impossible to miss. Unless the official curriculum was altered in such a way as to make it clear that the state had adopted a position that was overtly hostile to Christianity itself, I don't imagine Christians would be more up in arms than they are now, which, really, is not all that up in arms. They grumble a lot about it, but that's about it.
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OK, well of course I have been guessing that Christian fundamentalists in the US would hold huge angry street protests. So maybe I am wrong to think that. Though, I have to say that, equally you must also be guessing that it would not turn ugly.

But the reason why I think you would get serious opposition from US Christians, is partly that we do see, as you just mentioned, quite angry protests about abortion, and not just arising from the current proposals of letting individual states decide to make abortion illegal, but also before any of these current attempts to change the abortion laws, we did IIRC see a number of incidents where Christian fundamentalists have violently attacked staff at abortion clinics ... so that was one of the things in my mind ... But, also in the present discussion what have been talking about is Psion's proposal that pupils in ordinary schools all over the US should be encouraged to interrupt the teachers to dispute whether of not science effectively proves that humans evolved from earlier apes only about 200,000 years ago (that's only very recent in terms of the age of the Earth), so that biblical beliefs about God's creation are deffinitely untrue ... that would be a situation where the teachers were drawn into a direct claim of telling the class, in fact "teaching" the class, that God did not make humans and that their bible and their religious beliefs are wrong ...

... as far as I can see that would definitely lead to millions of very angry Christian parents when their kids came home from school saying that their teachers had taught them that their biblical faith was untrue about what is actually the root-&-branch basis of their faith, ie the belief that God created humans as his special project and his entire purpose in creating any universe at all ... ie, creation is, afaik, absolutely central to Christianity (and also to Islam) ... if creation is only an untrue myth, then as far as I can see the entire basis of the faith crumbles.

Anyway, the above is where I was coming from in those earlier replies, ie that's my thoughts on the entire issue as raised/proposed by Psion.
 
Tassman said:
Certainly the primitive concept of "universe" was limited. Nevertheless, the intent of that passage is that whatever existed 'god did it'
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No it isn't. Yes many Christians hold that their version of god created everything, but remember this sidebar started because of a claim of what Genesis "literally" says. If you go back to the "original" you find that their belief isn't what was put down in Genesis. Scholars (and Christian and Judaic theologians) have known this for centuries.

It's an interesting footnote in the perils of translation and the development of religions.

ETA:

Tassman said:
I think it is reasonable to assume that a primitive creation myth as found in Genesis, would include the entire universe as it was thought to be at the time. The fact that they got it wrong is beside the point.
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It might be a reasonable assumption but as ever facts trump assumptions. They didn't.

ETA: It is probably because at that point their belief was not in a singular omnipotent, omniscient god but a plurality of gods that they didn't. They were only claiming that their god was the big guy.

ETA 3:

Tassman - if you want to read about this it is handy that the Amazon "Look inside" feature lets you get to this point in "Commentary on the Torah", I think this link will work without being logged into Amazon https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B008QY9...08QY92E2&revisionId=cb0c1d2b&format=1&depth=1

Scroll down to the section that of course starts with the first words in Genesis.
 
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Tassman said:
I think it is reasonable to assume that a primitive creation myth as found in Genesis, would include the entire universe as it was thought to be at the time. The fact that they got it wrong is beside the point.
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Do you have anything to support this claim? I'm not so sure anyone at that time thought about a 'Universe', why would they, without any experimental data? :confused:
 
EaglePuncher said:
Do you have anything to support this claim? I'm not so sure anyone at that time thought about a 'Universe', why would they, without any experimental data? :confused:
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The text we have is quite clear that god in Genesis was not credited with creating the universe, he formed the earth and so on from stuff that already existed. Only later redefinitions of god created a god that was to be credited with creating everything.
 
Darat said:
The text we have is quite clear that god in Genesis was not credited with creating the universe, he formed the earth and so on from stuff that already existed. Only later redefinitions of god created a god that was to be credited with creating everything.
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I agree, but what I am saying is: "How could anyone at that time, with massively limited knowledge, determine that there was a vast universe out there?" I mean, if they knew about the vastness, "God X made all of this for us" would not make any sense, since even the most dim people would have realized that earth is just another rock among billions of others.
 
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Meadmaker said:
That's certainly how Jews use the word. Ha Olam.

I've seen Olam translated as "the universe" and as "everything" and as "the world", but "world" doesn't mean a big rock floating in space. It means everyplace you could possibly go. In the English translation of Jewish blessings today, "Melekh Ha Olam" is often translated "King of the Universe". I don't know that Latin term, but in the English Mass for the RCC, it's is translated "Ruler of All Creation". It's the same phrase.
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No. That translation is a modern concept, and a nefarious one at that. The translators made that up to justify their "goddidit" ideas.

There is no way that the original texts of the Torah or its equivalent, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy showed any indication at all that they were aware of a "universe beyond". The world ended at the firmament - period! Heavens was what was beyond, NOT the universe.

Tassman said:
Certainly the primitive concept of "universe" was limited. Nevertheless, the intent of that passage is that whatever existed 'god did it'
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Again, no! It wasn't just limited, it did not exist at all. They had NO concept of a wider universe at all!
 
jimbob said:
I'm not arguing anything about absolute proof, as you say, that doesn't exist except within formal logic and, if my understanding is correct, that also requires the acceptance of some axioms anyway.


I'm saying that you cannot use statistical methods to determine whether there is any "directed" mutation but also that it's utterly irrelevant, it's an extra level of complexity that is unnecessary and without any reason to invoke. It certainly has no place in a science class.

However I would say that we can examine how a competent and benign designer would design living systems and it's not what we see.
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OK, well I think we are not in any major disagreement here (though the last time I said that, I got an immediate reply saying that we were in total disagreement lol! ,.... so ... anyway) -

- I've said several times on the last few pages that I also think it's irrelevant whether or not we can literally "prove" that evolution is true (or prove that "statistical methods cannot be used to determine whether there is any "directed" mutation"." ... because as I have repeatedly tried to emphasise, the only possible test for anything appears to be "Evidence", ie the only possible valid question is whether or not there is convincing evidence for whatever we conclude ...

... and afaik, there is zero credible evidence for the guiding hand of God either in evolution or in anything else.

Whereas, on the other hand, there is mountains of evidence to support evolution (inc. of course homo sapiens evolution from earlier apes).

That makes evolution the only credible answer. And that rules out any God as much as it's ever possible to rule out a God.
 
IanS said:
OK, well I think we are not in any major disagreement here (though the last time I said that, I got an immediate reply saying that we were in total disagreement lol! ,.... so ... anyway) -

- I've said several times on the last few pages that I also think it's irrelevant whether or not we can literally "prove" that evolution is true (or prove that "statistical methods cannot be used to determine whether there is any "directed" mutation"." ... because as I have repeatedly tried to emphasise, the only possible test for anything appears to be "Evidence", ie the only possible valid question is whether or not there is convincing evidence for whatever we conclude ...

... and afaik, there is zero credible evidence for the guiding hand of God either in evolution or in anything else.

Whereas, on the other hand, there is mountains of evidence to support evolution (inc. of course homo sapiens evolution from earlier apes).

That makes evolution the only credible answer. And that rules out any God as much as it's ever possible to rule out a God.
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I think you misread what I had written.

I said violently agreeing:p
 
"Proof" is less important than "workable, matches data, experiments are repeatable, this idea seems best fit". What would proof be, anyway? "There be gravity" is best an observation, as it is factual, but "truth" is way too highfalutin.

"Low-falutin" repeatable observations are where the action's at. Truth statements and Aristotle's logic do not fit situations in which there are yet observations to be made, humankind's eternal situation (i.e.; incomplete information). Big Truth is a holdover, really, from when the only camp providing explanatory narratives was shamanism/religion, and those explanations had to be absolute, timeless and true, else they had no foundation, and gods had no power to confer on priests, smashing their authority.

Science is grounded and could care less about "truth".
 
Darat said:
The text we have is quite clear that god in Genesis was not credited with creating the universe, he formed the earth and so on from stuff that already existed.
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No it isn't. "Stuff that already existed" (or words to that effect) do not appear anywhere in the bible.
 
psionl0 said:
No it isn't. "Stuff that already existed" (or words to that effect) do not appear anywhere in the bible.
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If it wasn't for the first few verses of Genesis you may be right. I provided the link above to the sample of a book that will explain to you what the Hebrew means.

I can only lead you to the information.
 
Darat said:
The text we have is quite clear that god in Genesis was not credited with creating the universe, he formed the earth and so on from stuff that already existed. Only later redefinitions of god created a god that was to be credited with creating everything.
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Really?

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
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Hmmmm. Seems to me that might be mistaken.
 
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